Windowless Cubicle
by riley-poole27
Summary: Pre-NT. Riley Poole gets a job at an office building, working in a windowless cubicle. Riley/OC
1. Chapter 1

Riley opened his eyes and sat up in bed. It was three o'clock in the morning, and still pitch black out. Squinting slightly, he read the LED numbers off his alarm clock, before lying back down. He'd been having nightmares these last few nights. Mostly anxiety-ridden dreams about his lack of money, and about his new job. He lay back down on his bed, sinking his face into the pillows. He still had a few more hours to go before he had to officially get up. Pulling his blanket over his head, Riley drifted off into sleep again.

When he arrived at the office building a few hours later, he was dressed in a tie, brown cordoroy pants, suit jacket, black framed glasses, and his trusty black converse hightops. His brown hair was combed down neatly, and he looked really good.

Today was his first day at the office, and he was given a quick tour along with all the other newly hired workers. There were about a dozen people on the tour. Riley stayed near the back, so he could observe all his new coworkers. He felt a little overdressed, because most of the guys were only wearing polo shirts or white dress shirts. Everyone was much more casually dressed, since He was the only one wearing a tie, and a suit jacket. This didn't go unnoticed by the the group. A few people were giving him sidelong glances, but so far nobody had talked to him.

There were two women in the group. The first woman was quite a bit older then Riley, about forty or fifty. She had grey-streaked hair tied back in a ponytail, and a slight frown on her face. The other woman was much younger, about eighteen or nineteen. She had black, frizzy hair that was cut short and halo'd around her head. She was wearing a short skirt with forest green tights. She turned her head away from the tour and caught Riley watching her. Her eyebrows raised a bit, but he looked away, flustered.

He turned his attention back to the man at the helm of the tour, who was droning on with a really monotous voice. The crowd moved on from the lobby to the rows of cubicles. The man continued to explain various company policies, while everyone followed behind him.

"Ughh... this tour is so boring."

Riley had been zoning out while staring at an empty cubicle, when he heard the whispered voice right beside his ear. He jumped a little, and turned his attention to the girl with the black, frizzy hair.

"Uhh...Hi...Yeah it's boring." He responded, whispering back. She was standing really close to him, close enough for him to smell her apple scented shampoo.

"I'm Elise Faulkner. Why are you dressed so fancy for? I thought it was more of a casual workplace here."

"I didn't know. The last time I worked in an office environment they were pretty strict about what we could wear."

"Nah...not here. It's different here, they are pretty lax. What's your name?"

"Riley Poole. I'm twenty three."

"Riley. Nice name."

"Umm... how old are you?"

"Nineteen."

They were still whispering back and forth, completely oblivious to the fact that the tour of the building had continued onto the next floor. The last stop was the break room, which also had lockers for personal use.

Riley was the first to notice that they were the only ones left of the tour. Looking around, he couldn't see anybody from the group anymore.

"Uhhh... Elise? "

She noticed as well, and quickly strode over to the nearest occupied cubicle. Leaning over the divider, she smiled at the young man working.

"Hi. sorry to disrupt...do you know where our tour went?"

The man looked up at her, then nodded.

"Mr. Lorenzo usually ends the tour in the break room. That's on the top floor."

Elise grabbed Riley by the sleeve, and started to speedwalk toward the elevator. He jogged to keep up to her.

"Wow, what a great first impression on our first day. Losing the group. Holy Lord, I hope nobody notices we are gone yet. I really need this job."

When they got to the break room, everybody was milling around. Some people were sitting down in small groups, while others were texting on their phones. Riley snagged two chairs beside each other, and they both sat down quickly.

Shortly after, everyone that was on the tour was assigned a cubicle to go to, so they could get some hands-on training.

Right before everybody split up to go to their respective cubicles, Elise slipped a handwritten note into the pocket of his jacket.

"Riley, give me a call, willya?"

After she had left, some of the guys started talking about her, mostly commenting on the fact that she was the hottest girl in the office so far. Some of them were shooting a few envious looks towards Riley, who at this point went from slightly pink to beet red. He took the note out of his pocket and unfolded it.

Hiya Riley,

We should meet up for beers after work. Good thing we didn't get in trouble today, haha.

Elise

The note included her phone number, and the name of the bar down the street. He carefully refolded the letter, and put it back in his pocket.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur, as he met with his cubicle buddy Mike Cho, who started to train him on the basics of working at the office. Most of this stuff was relatively easy to Riley, since he'd had a few jobs that were similar in the last few years. Filing, writing emails, answering phone calls,etc.

When it was time to leave for the night, he had a stack of paperwork he had to read, a manual to memorize, and a slight headache.


	2. Chapter 2

Riley opened the door to the bar, and stepped in. He quickly glanced around the crowded room, until he spotted Elise sitting in a booth at the far corner. She grinned when she saw him come in the room, half-standing for a second to wave him down. Riley made his way over to her, and sat across from her.

She had already ordered a plate of chicken wings, and two coolers. He took a swig of the drink, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Between the two of them, they devoured the entire plate of wings over the next fifteen minutes.

"How do you like work? It's kinda boring, but the people are nice."

Riley shrugged his shoulders, and smiled nervously at her.

"Nah, it's not too boring. I like working with computers and stuff. It's fun."

"Nerd." Elise joked, before looking slightly apologetic.

"I prefer the term techie, thank you very much" Riley quickly retorted. He knew she was just teasing him, so he grinned at her, before reaching for another chicken wing.

Over the next few weeks, Elise made sure to eat lunch with him nearly every workday, and they continued hanging out after work as well. They went to the Lincoln memorial one weekend, and to Mikey's bar again.

Elise even managed to get Riley to sing a few karaoke songs with her at a bar. Although he'd been horribly nervous about singing in front of other people, he allowed her drag him onstage. After a slightly off-tune rendition of Uncle Kracker's "Follow Me", and Good Charlotte's "Anthem", Riley was surprised to see people in the crowd clapping enthusiastically for them.

One day during work, Elise walked past his cubicle and handed him another handwritten note, folded with his initials on it. He smiled at her, and tucked it into his pocket to read when he had a spare moment.

The note-passing between Riley and Elise did not go unnoticed by their coworkers. As soon as she was out of sight, Mike Cho wheeled across the floor on his chair, and nudged Riley's shoulder.

"Dude... Are you guys going out or what?"

Riley squinted at him, and shook his head.

"We're just friends, Mike."

"She's pretty hot, though. Do you think you could put in a good word for me? I'd date her any day."

"Mike, I'm trying to work. Ask her yourself."

"Maybe I will."

He unfolded her note after Mike returned to his desk, and found out that Elise was inviting Riley to a Halloween party at a club. He was pretty excited about going, even though he hadn't dressed up for Halloween since junior high. Halloween was in a week, so he still had a few days to prepare his costume.

On Saturday morning, Riley was watching cartoons on TV, while browsing the internet. The remnants of his toast and orange juice breakfast sat stone cold on the desk beside his laptop.

There was a knock on his apartment door, and when he answered it, Elise was standing there holding two steaming hot coffees. She looked him up and down for a few seconds before smirking. His hair was sticking up even more then normally, and he was wearing striped pyjama pants and an old t-shirt.

"You look like you just got out of bed. It's 11:30 already. Why are you still in your pj's?"

"I've been up for hours, I've just been on the computer." He said defensively, before reaching for the coffee.

Elise pulled it away teasingly, before allowing him to take it from her hand.

"D'you wanna go shop for costumes? Have you decided what you're going as yet?"

Riley shook his head, then went back to his computer desk. He grabbed a bite of the cold piece of toast off his plate, and set to work bookmarking all the websites he was currently looking at.

"I was just looking up some stuff, but I'll go get dressed and we can go see what costumes we can find."

He left to change into some jeans and a hoody, and they spent most of the day at the costume shops trying to find a decent outfit. At the end of the day, it was finally decided that Elise would go as Wonder Woman, while Riley would go as Darth Vader.


	3. Chapter 3

The night of the halloween party, Elise showed up at Riley's apartment a few hours before the party. They started to hand out candy to the small clusters of children tricker treating with their families. Riley was already wearing his Darth Vadar costume, so Elise went upstairs to his flat to change into her costume.

When she came back downstairs, she was wearing a tight red and gold top that was pushing her cleavage upwards, with blue and white bottoms. She had red knee high boots, and a gold crown. She had a coiled lasso of truth pinned to the side of her costume. When Riley saw her, his eyebrows shot up, and he grinned at her. She twirled in a circle for him, before grabbing a mars bar out of the candy bowl.

"I like your costume." He told her, helping himself to a sucker.

"Thanks. I like yours, too." She responded, admiring his red light saber, and black suit. He was wearing a heavy cape, and a pair of black shiny boots.

They sat side by side on the front steps of his apartment building, crosslegged for two hours, handing out candy to passing groups of children.

By the time it was time to walk over to the party, it was getting colder outside, so Elise borrowed one of Riley's hoodies to wear over her costume.

When they arrived at the party, they each downed a beer before joining everyone on the dance floor.

By the end of the night, Riley and Elise were pretty drunk. He walked her back to his apartment building to pick up her clothes, and to call a taxi. Just as the taxi pulled up to the curb, Riley made a drunk decision, and leaned forward and kissed Elise on the lips. Her eyebrows raised up, and there was moment of shocked silence between them.

He pulled back away from her, and blushed fiercely. "sorry," he muttered, averting his eyes to the leaf-strewn sidewalk.

She quickly wrapped her arms around him in a friendly hug, before releasing him. Elise pulled open the door of the cab, and closed the door behind her.

Riley stood on the sidewalk for a few moments after the taxi had left, inwardly berating himself for acting so foolishly. Why had he kissed her? She must think he was an idiot now. He should never have had that much to drink,he thought to himself. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and now she probably never wanted to talk to him again.

He spent the better part of his Saturday on his laptop, looking up conspiracy theories, and giving his apartment a much-needed cleanup. Riley did his best to stay off all social media sites he usually was on, and to not check his text messages. He was certain that by now, Elise had probably told everyone they worked with that Riley had tried to put the moves on someone like her. Someone unattainable for a lowly computer nerd like himself.

When his resolve finally broke, Riley discovered that not only had she tried to talk to him on facebook, but had also left him six text messages urging him to call her back as soon as he could.

Riley sent her a quick message. "Elise I'm sorry for what happened last night. Please don't be mad at me, it was a stupid drunken accident."

It took her a few minutes to respond to his text. "Riley - I'm not mad that you kissed me. I was just surprised. I never thought of you romantically before. "

When they saw each other on monday at the office, Riley offered her a nervous smile, unsure of how to broach the subject of their kiss. She grinned back at him, before grabbing his hand and pulling him into the ladies room.

"Elise! I can't be in here-"

"Riley! I just need to talk to you privately. Calm down, someone might hear you."

"Look," Elise started." I'm not mad at you, ok? You're a great guy. I'm just more comfortable being your friend is all. You're smart, your funny and you are kind of cute. I don't want there to be any weird awkwardness between us. Are we good?"

Riley nodded, and they both left the bathroom to go back to their cubicles.


	4. Chapter 4

Riley found out through one of his coworkers that Elise had gone out on a date with Daniel, one of the IT guys from the third floor. He was typing on his computer, waiting for a phone call, when Mike rolled his chair across the floor to his cubicle.

"Dude - you heard that Elise hooked up with Daniel last night?" Mike asked him. Riley stopped typing, and looked over at Mike, surprised.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I heard from the guys talking in the break room."

"Damn," Riley thought out loud. Mike laughed, before pushing off to roll back to his workspace.

It didn't surprise Riley that she had gone out on a date with Daniel, she was free to date whoever she wanted. He was a bit surprised that she hadn't told him, that he had to hear from someone else in the office.

Riley took out his bagged lunch from the fridge, and sat down at an empty table. He was working on his sandwich when Elise came into the room. Her face lit up as soon as she saw him, and sat across from him at the table.

"Hey Riley," She told him. "Do you know Daniel, the IT guy? We went out for a drink last night at a bar."

"Yeah, I know. Mike told me." Riley told her, handing her half of his sandwich.

"What do you think of him? Like, he seems nice enough." Elise smiled at him, taking a bite.

Riley shrugged. "Barely know him." He admitted. He'd only talked to him briefly a few times, and their conversations had all been work-related.

They moved onto other subjects after that, talking about various movies they'd seen and office gossip.

That night, Riley stayed up until two a.m reading up on a few conspiracy theories. His friend Andy, had emailed him a few links that he found of great interest. He pulled up one of the articles, scanning the page.

The article was about a family by the name of Gates who believed that a long-lost treasure was hidden somewhere in the United States. Apparently, the family had been searching for the treasure for many generations. They had been trying to decipher a clue given to them by Charles Carroll.

Riley thought the story was really interesting, although he didn't really think that treasure existed. If it did, wouldn't that family have found it after all this time? He sent an email to his friend, thanking him for the article.

Riley fired off another email before he went to bed, to the reporter that wrote the article. He told her how he was interested in the story, and was wondering if he could have more information on the Gates treasure.

Elise and Daniel started going steady that week, so Riley found himself with alot more spare time on his hands. He received an email from the reporter after a few days. She'd sent him a few scanned newspaper clippings from years ago, and included an email address for Ben Gates.

Riley printed off the articles and stuck them into his backpack. He hoped to show them to Elise at work the next time he saw her.


End file.
